


Tired

by yavannauk



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen, Minor Character Death, Snippets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-03
Updated: 2006-02-03
Packaged: 2017-11-25 00:13:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/633053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yavannauk/pseuds/yavannauk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John gets the impression Rodney didn't really want to be found.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tired

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to watching The Defiant One for the first time so reference to canonical minor character death.

After he's released from the infirmary, John goes in search of Rodney. Contrary to his normal list of post-mission complaints, Rodney had endured Carson's examination in near-silence and then escaped at the earliest opportunity. It's enough of an anomaly to cause John some concern.

It takes John a while to find Rodney and he gets the impression that Rodney didn't really want to be found. From his appearance it's clear that Rodney hasn't been back to his quarters since their return from the planet. John knows that he's looking a bit ragged around the edges himself after their game of cat and mouse with the lone, ancient Wraith, but Rodney looks worse. His clothes and skin still bear a fine coating of sand, but it's his face that shows the marks of their misadventures most starkly.

It's not that Rodney was injured; he'd escaped unharmed. Nevertheless, his expression when he turns at John's intrusion is filled with an aching hurt, his blue eyes shadowed, and he's hunched in on himself, arms wrapped around his stomach as if Rodney is trying to protect against a blow. When John walks across to the balcony rail to join him, everything about Rodney's posture screams, 'go away, leave me alone', but he seems too tired to actually articulate the feeling. Taking that as a tacit agreement to his presence, John stays where he is, leaning back against the railing so that he can observe Rodney.

John doesn't need to ask what's affecting Rodney. He's now well aware exactly how Brendan Gaul died. John's not naive enough to think that there was ever a real chance of Gaul surviving, but he certainly wouldn't have anticipated him blowing his own brains out rather than waiting for the slow death caused by the Wraith's feeding. He doesn't know if Rodney honestly believed they'd be bringing Gaul back alive, but John's quite sure he wouldn't have expected this outcome either. 

The fact that Rodney put the gun in Gaul's hand in the first place can only have made things worse. God alone knows what Rodney must have felt when he turned around to see the results of Gaul's actions. John wouldn't wish that on his worst enemy and certainly not on the man who's unexpectedly become his best friend in the time that they've been here in Atlantis. 

There's no question that Rodney's changed, become stronger, since their arrival in the Pegasus galaxy, but what happened today would be enough to shock even a hardened military man, and Rodney's a long way from being one of those. Despite a few, desultory efforts at their usual banter, Rodney had been uncharacteristically quiet during the fifteen hour return flight to Atlantis and had followed it up with his rapid exit from the infirmary. John's not going to let him keep running, though.

He's sure that Rodney is already well on the way to working out how Gaul's death is his fault, when it's nothing of the kind. Gaul made his own choice, no matter what Rodney is currently telling himself. John's no stranger to guilt; he has plenty of ghosts of his own and not all of them followed him from his own galaxy. John knows what carrying them around in your head can do to you and he's not prepared to see Rodney wear that haunted look for any longer than necessary.

Today has been hell on both of them, but neither of them deserves to burn for what happened. Now John just needs to find the right words to convince Rodney of that. John can go back to figuring out how to deal with his own demons later.


End file.
